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Texas Politics Semester Project

For this project, you will be running for office. Choose whether you would like to run for the Texas House of Representatives OR the Texas State Senate. We will be doing the project in chunks (5 assignments), developing a comprehensive plan for you to be a Texas legislator.

Each of the five assignments is worth 50 points, and you will receive comments to edit and improve your work, if necessary. At the end of the semester, you will compile all five assignments into a completed project, with an executive summary of your work (worth 100 points).

Therefore, the entire semester project is worth 400 points, or 40% of your overall grade.

Part I: Preparing to Run

1. Know your district. Go to: http://www.fyi.legis.state.tx.us/Home.aspx , and discover the district number, and who represents you either in the Texas house or state senate.

2. Go to your current representative’s page and look at the district analyses documents. These will be pdfs found on the legislator's home page

a. What does your district look like (in terms of population, age, education, employment, election results?

b. What issues arise based upon the district’s demographics (this will help you think about your platform)

The purpose of the Semester Project is to mount a campaign for either the Texas house of representatives or the Texas state senate (not US!). Therefore, Part I serves a few purposes: it gets you to choose which, to figure out who currently represents you, and to learn about the district and the people you wish to serve. To that end, you'll put in your address, find the legislator whose seat you want, go to his/her webpage, and read the District Analysis documents (pdfs). Also look at the district map. What can you discuss?

(1) Which cities fall in your district

(2) Is it primarily a Democratic or Republican district (you'll need to factor that in later in the project)

(3) Is it rural or urban? Wealthy or less so? Educated or less so?

(4) What industries are present in your district? What do people do for a living?

Once you discover these things, you can start your three generic issue stands. Do you need more college-educated folks in your district? What's infrastructure like in your district, and does it help or hinder your constituents? Is it a young or old district (if younger, education is key; if older, taxes and benefits are keys). At this point in the project, you are learning about the place and people you want to represent.

Don't forget to cite any sources used! And remember, look at the grading rubric. This, like the other parts of the project, should be 2-3 double spaced pages, with introductions and conclusions.

Marketable Skills

Within each Core Objective, students practice and demonstrate marketable skills – in other words, those skills that employers desire, but which are seldom articulated in course content or assessment.

GOVT courses assess Critical Thinking (CT), Communication (COMM), Personal Responsibility (PR) and Social Responsibility (SR). Assignments may allow students to demonstrate marketable skills in other areas as well. In this assignment, students will develop the following marketable skills:

CT	COMM	PR	SR	EMP/QUANT
Analyze Issues	Clearly and effectively articulate ideas orally	Accept responsibility	Demonstrate awareness of community issues	Contextualize numeric information/data
Apply knowledge to make decisions	Summarize information	Demonstrate ethical behavior	Develop civic responsibility	Draw inferences from data, use data to formulate conclusions
Detect patterns/themes/underlying principles	use proper technical writing skills	Show attention to detail	Learn from diverse cultures, races, genders, religions, etc.
Gather proper resources and information to conduct research		Exhibit Time Management
Interpret data and synthesize information		Show respect for others

Part II: When You Win

When You Win…(Because we’re eternal optimists)

1. Research the committees of the House ( http://www.house.state.tx.us/committees/ ) and state senate ( http://www.senate.state.tx.us/committees.php )

2. Choose at least three (3) committees on which you’d serve, if elected.

a. Explain each committee’s functions (is it substantive or procedural?).

b. Explain why your placement on these committees is justified. How does it serve you district’s needs? How does it emphasize your experiences/interests?

3. What kind of constituent service would you be likely to do? What kind of “home style” would you create (and how)? Most Texans do not know who their legislators are. How do you seek to solve that problem? The National Conference of State Legislatures’ list of 15 Tips for State legislators includes:

"#12: Stay in Touch with Your Constituents

Communicate with your constituents. This is an overwhelming task, but it’s critical. Return phone calls, answer e-mails and letters, have town meetings. Let them know who you are, that you’re approachable and responsible, that you represent them. Besides, it makes the job a lot more interesting if you really know the people you represent. It’s difficult to build a bond with your constituents simply through press releases. If you have any writing skills at all and you care about policy, it’s well worth the time to write a weekly column for the news media, start a blog or post your views on a Facebook page. It’s important to think through the issues before a decision and to explain to your constituents—either before or after you vote—how you got there."

https://www.ncsl.org/research/about-state-legislatures/15-tips-for-being-an-effective-legislator.aspx#12

See the following for a discussion of what constituent service is, and examples of how a few Texas legislators practice it:

https://www.linafortexas.com/district-77-1

https://www.burnsfortexas.com/constituent-services

Marketable Skills

CT	COMM	PR	SR
Analyze Issues	Clearly and effectively articulate ideas orally	Accept responsibility	Demonstrate awareness of community issues
Apply knowledge to make decisions	Summarize information	Demonstrate ethical behavior	Develop civic responsibility
Detect patterns/themes/underlying principles	use proper technical writing skills	Show attention to detail	Learn from diverse cultures, races, genders, religions, etc.
Gather proper resources and information to conduct research		Exhibit Time Management
Anticipate problems, solutions and consequences		Show respect for others

Part III: Your Party, Your Politics and Your Platform

In this part of the project, you are going to learn more about your own political leanings, create your "platform" -- the set of issue stands you will run on -- and compare and contrast them with the party you choose to run under. Please announce which party you are affiliated with, then choose that platform to read and reflect upon (so don't do both). If your survey results come up with Independent, you must pick a party (we will learn in this unit that 3rd party candidates can't succeed).

1. Know yourself. Take the Pew Political Typology to identify your political leanings (you may not get a firm "Democrat" or "Republican" group, so read the results carefully and discuss in your paper):

a. http://www.people-press.org/quiz/political-typology/

b. Submit a screenshot or jpg of your result (either in your paper or as a separate file)

2. Given your results, and your previous district analysis research, what’s your platform? Choose at least 3 issue stands to develop. These can be the same ones you listed in Part I, or you can choose new ones. Consider what really matters to you, something you'd be willing to fight for in the legislature.

3. Compare your issue stands with the official party platforms of your party (or the party you are most closely aligned to):

a. Texas Democratic Party platform : Texas Republican Party platform

b. Where do your ideas align with the party?

c. Where do your ideas diverge from the party?

Marketable Skills

CT	COMM	PR	SR
Analyze Issues	Clearly and effectively articulate ideas orally	Accept responsibility	Demonstrate awareness of community issues
Apply knowledge to make decisions	Summarize information	Demonstrate ethical behavior	Develop civic responsibility
Detect patterns/themes/underlying principles	use proper technical writing skills	Show attention to detail	Learn from diverse cultures, races, genders, religions, etc.
Gather proper resources and information to conduct research		Exhibit Time Management
Anticipate problems, solutions, and consequences		Show respect for others

Part IV: The Campaign:

For this part of your campaign, you will be looking at how to structure your campaign properly and legally, while identifying interest group allies and enemies.

How much does it cost to run for office in Texas? How should you properly (and legally) structure your campaign? See the links below:

a. https://www.texastribune.org/2017/03/01/heres-how-much-texas-candidates-spent-vote-general-election/

b. How will you raise money? (read this handy info from the Texas Democratic Party before you violate any campaign finance laws: https://www.txdemocrats.org/act/run-for-office )

c. Visit the Texas Ethics Commission to find out how to run your campaign.

d. What interest groups will support/oppose you? Go to https://votesmart.org/interest-groups/TX/#.WXjT4ojyuUk and identify two (2) interest groups that you think will support your campaign, and two (2) who will oppose your campaign. This is NOT a complete list of Texas interest groups. If you cannot find your subject(s) in the list, do a Google search for "[issue] interest groups in Texas." You will surely find what you're looking for! Once you have found the groups, go to their websites, learn about their agendas. Explain why the groups will support or oppose your campaign, referring to your platform (from Part III).

Marketable Skills

CT	COMM	PR	SR	EMP/QUANT
Analyze Issues	Clearly and effectively articulate ideas orally	Accept responsibility	Demonstrate awareness of community issues	Contextualize numeric information/data
Apply knowledge to make decisions	Summarize information	Demonstrate ethical behavior	Develop civic responsibility	Demonstrate logical thinking
Detect patterns/themes/underlying principles	use proper technical writing skills	Show attention to detail	Learn from diverse cultures, races, genders, religions, etc.
Gather proper resources and information to conduct research		Exhibit Time Management
Anticipate problems, solutions, and consequences		Show respect for others
Interpret data and synthesize information

Part V: How Do You Present Yourself as a Candidate?

The purpose of this part of the project is to create the campaign marketing -- getting YOUR message out in an effort to attract and turn out voters on Election Day. Your campaign marketing must consider the following:

1. What’s your SLOGAN? This should be a catchy phrase that can appear on signage (see #3 below) and on bumper stickers.

2. What is your stump speech (a stump speech is a few paragraphs summarizing why you want to represent your district, what you’ll personally bring to the office, you vision statement for the district and the state.

3. Design a campaign sign. Think about signs you've seen for other elections. What common components are necessary for a good campaign sign? What will draw voters to you? In crafting your sign, you may draw it, use PPT, Adobe, or any other software. One ambitious student used Shutterfly (or another online signage company) to craft his sign. In other words, use whatever resource is available to you, but it must be submitted via eCampus.

4. Which newspaper (or general media), elected official, and/or celebrity endorsements will you seek? Why? Again, think about where you are running and who voters might listen to or be impressed by.

5. How do you get out the vote? Given your issue stands, what voter groups do you need to target? What is the general party identification distribution in your district (refer to the district analyses documents on your current legislator’s homepage)?

Marketable Skills:

CT	COMM	PR	SR
Analyze Issues	Clearly and effectively articulate ideas orally	Accept responsibility	Demonstrate awareness of community issues
Apply knowledge to make decisions	Summarize information	Demonstrate ethical behavior	Develop civic responsibility
Detect patterns/themes/underlying principles	use proper technical writing skills	Show attention to detail	Learn from diverse cultures, races, genders, religions, etc.
Gather proper resources and information to conduct research		Exhibit Time Management
Anticipate problems, solutions, and consequences		Show respect for others
Interpret data and synthesize information

The Executive Summary and Marketable Skills Reflection

· In the business world, an executive summary is simply a wrap up of the research and reporting that makes up a project. It should be a shining summary of your successful campaign, a reflection on all the hard work you did to get to the point of victory. It should be 2+ pages, including an introduction and conclusion, and then a paragraph or so discussing each part of your project. At the end of the Executive Summary, you must attach each corrected part of the project (so, if you received less than 60 points on any of the project parts, you need to look at the rubric and/or my comments, and make the fixes in BLUE font, so that I can see them). The end result (Executive Summary + Parts I-V + any attachments [like your sign, or Pew Typology results]) will be a rather large, single document that will show you (and me) how much great work you've done during our class.

· What marketable skills did you develop in completing this project? Which were the most challenging? What parts of the project present your best work in demonstrating marketable skills? What would you think you need to continue developing?

· Remember to submit just 1 document, including everything in the proper order (see the grading rubric).

· You should be proud of the final product and hold onto it as an example of project-based learning!

Marketable Skills

CT	COMM	PR	SR
Analyze Issues	Clearly and effectively articulate ideas orally	Accept responsibility	Demonstrate awareness of community issues
Apply knowledge to make decisions	Summarize information	Demonstrate ethical behavior	Develop civic responsibility
Detect patterns/themes/underlying principles	use proper technical writing skills	Show attention to detail	Learn from diverse cultures, races, genders, religions, etc.
Gather proper resources and information to conduct research		Exhibit Time Management
Anticipate problems, solutions and consequences		Show respect for others
Interpret data and synthesize information		Learn and grow from mistakes

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